


The Drowning Man, and the Woman Who Saves Him

by SpaceNugget11



Category: Gintama
Genre: Dark Comedy, Epic Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, It's plantonic, Yorozuya Family, you sick jerks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceNugget11/pseuds/SpaceNugget11
Summary: Somehow, Gintoki ends up wandering into the graveyards. His teacher had found him walking among the dead and now he's returned. It's not entirely clear how he got here, and in his half-delirious state his guess is good as anyone else's; maybe it's kind of like "ashes to ashes" or the whole "Equivalent Exchange" thing (wait, that's not trademarked, right?).Meanwhile, Otose's pretty sure the world is falling to anarchy. She's probably right.
Relationships: Otose | Terada Ayano & Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	1. Gintoki, the Drowning Man

**Author's Note:**

> Gintoki and Otose's relationship is criminally underrated. This story is a one-man crusade to right this wrong. For the Glory of GenFics!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Some mild Shinegami Arc and Deva Arc spoilers to ensue

"Have you had enough yet, Shiroyasha?" A man screams in his ear. Before Gintoki can tell him about the giant booger hanging from his nose, they shove his head into the bucket. It's filled with water and ice and frankly not the greatest experience on multiple levels. The first, because getting your head shoved into a bucket is, by principle, never a good time. The second, because the wardens hold him down until his lungs give out and the black water comes rushing in. 

When they yank him out, he’s either throwing up water or already passed out. Gintoki usually prefers the latter, but these assholes in prison are always so _damn_ unaccommodating. Then it’s rinse, wash, and repeat--pun totally intended. Until recently, people were going around calling him the White Demon, Scourge of the Battlefield, but not even all his fancy titles can do much against five men, iron chains, and weeks of starvation. 

.

.

.

Back when they captured him on the battlefield using the good ol' We Have Your Friends Hostage, Surrender or Watch Them Die maneuver, they tied his hands together and told him they were bringing him in for more "questioning." Three months later, and no one's really gotten around to the "questioning" part, but Gintoki figures that’s bureaucracy for you. Also, if he was going to be honest with himself, everything’s been kind of a blur since that whole fiasco on the cliffs—you know, the one where he swung his blade and sent his teacher’s head flying like a punted soccer ball while his friends on the sidelines exploded like his cheer squad. Albeit, instead of “go,” they were all screaming “stop.” Details. 

And maybe he had made the whole “questioning” bit up, who knows? He’s probably lost a few screws here and there since that day.

These days, at the end of tHe ToRtUrE, he very rarely ever gets back to his cell on his own two legs. Usually, they have to drag him back, and usually, he lays where ever he's tossed on the flagstone floor (the disrespect!), partially for the fragrant _eau de toilette_ of urine and spilled prison soup, but mostly so that he can wait until he listlessly slides into sleep's abyss. If he’s lucky, he won’t have any dreams.

.

.

.

When his executioner appears in front of his cell in the dead of night, a crooked grin cuts across Gintoki's face. They weren't supposed to lop his head off until tomorrow morning; it seems his appointment with Death's been moved up on the schedule.

He's punch-drunk from hunger and exhaustion, and it must be bad because he's talking to his dead teacher. He says, _Hey, hey, what's this? I guess the Shiroyasha's getting some VIP treatment, tonight. Aren't I the lucky guy, Sensei?_ He’s sitting against the wall of his cell, his arms limp on the ground beside him, mottled with bruises that are turning some pretty fascinating shades—he didn’t even know they could turn purple like that! 

The end is nigh, and Gintoki’s actually a little relieved: he still hasn't been able to tell his interrogator about the lump of booger in his nose, and _that_ was the worst of the torture these past few months. 

His executioner, a strict-looking man who looks like the type that would starch his underwear, takes a seat on the cement floor, leaning back against the prison bars. The man doesn't say a word, and Gintoki frankly can’t bring himself to give a damn.

After some intervening silence, during part of which Gintoki wonders if he’s just sneakily trying to pick out a wedgie, the executioner says some mumbo jumbo about demons killing other demons. It sounds wise and poignant, so Gintoki automatically tunes him out (force of habit). Then, keys jingle, a latch clangs, and slowly, the bars to the cell groan open.

Oh. Well, that's a twist. Gintoki decides this is how L must've felt when he found out who Kira was. 

Long after his executioner leaves, Gintoki remains with his back against the cold walls of his cell, staring out into freedom. _Congratulations Sakata Gintoki_ , _you did it,_ he thinks, trying to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for the occasion, but his fingers just scrape against the bottom of his heart and come up empty.

.

.

.

The world outside is canvassed in snow, and Gintoki leaves one kind of prison to enter another locked in winter. White flakes float down from the flat, gray skies and he guesses it must be around January, though it's hard to tell since the days have started running into each other--prison benders had that effect. 

He's dressed in his finest prisoner's regalia, but the thin linen is just one big joke against the cold, so he folds his arms over his chest and does the only thing he can ever seem to do right: he walks forward.

At first, it’s easy, and then it becomes hard. The cold cuts like a thousand razorblades, and Gin-san's thinking starts getting a little funny. Okay, maybe his thinking has always been a little funny, but look, what more do you expect from a guy whose earliest memory is of patting down a headless corpse, searching for a bite to eat? Fine, fine, his thinking gets funnier _t_ _han usua_ l, happy? As he trudges through the snow, the little funny thinking he imagines is the soles of his feet sticking to ground the way your tongue does when you lick a metal pole in the middle of December, and when he rips his foot away with the next step, it'll leave a sheet of skin pasted to the ice behind him. He'd leave blood in his wake like a trail of red blooming in the snow. He'd keep walking until all the flesh on the pads of his feet have been ripped away to the bone. He's trying to decide whether the pain would be horrific or if he'd be so numb he'd just go on without noticing. 

He wonders if the blood loss would be bad enough to make his heart give out, make that red organ finally throw its hands up in exasperation and cry out, "Fuck it! This is it, I'm done— _fucking_ done! DONE-ZO! " Lately it’s been through quite the crucible, you know, between beheading his teacher with his own hands and losing an entire fucking war for humankind—no one would blame the poor guy for throwing in the towel, right?

His heart, he means. He's talking about his heart.

But the bottom of Gintoki's feet stay attached, his heart keeps beating (the persistent little turd), and eventually all his bits go so numb he can't even pretend he's going to die an excruciating death. More likely, he'll end up passing out in some alley and slip quietly in the great beyond and no one would be the wiser, at least, not until spring comes and melts the layer of snow off of his corpse. It's not going to be the flashiest way to go, especially for a guy who's life had played out against the grand sweeping backdrop of an intergalactic war. Compared to all the blood and glory of battle—against motherfucking _aliens_ , no less—dying of hypothermia behind some trashcans would be a little embarrassing. Then again, his whole life has been one great big embarrassment, so he might as well take it to the grave, ha ha.

Melodrama just cramped his style, anyways.

.

.

.

Somehow, Gintoki ends up wandering into the graveyards. His teacher had found him walking among the dead and now he's returned. It's not entirely clear how he got here, and in his half-delirious state his guess is good as anyone else's; maybe it's kind of like "ashes to ashes" or the whole "Equivalent Exchange" thing (wait, that's not trademarked, right?). 

He spies a particularly large headstone sticking out over the city of tombs like an unsightly skyscraper. _Man, that guy must've been one cocky son-of-a-bitch,_ Gintoki thinks and decides it's perfect for him, too. He had battled motherfucking _aliens_ , after all, and there was no way he'd die an embarrassing death behind some trashcans. He was the Shiroyasha, damn it, crank that melodrama up to fucking eleven!

"Hope you don't mind sharing some of this real estate, buddy," Gintoki says and takes a seat in the snow behind the eyesore of tomb. He leans back against the stone, unable to feel the ice-cold surface against the frozen skin of his back. He lays his hands in his lap and he notices that his pinky-toe might be turning black, but that's okay since he's sure he can do without it in the afterlife.

.

.

.


	2. Otose, the Woman Who Saves Him

When Otose went to visit her husband's grave that day in winter, she found something peculiar sitting at its base: a frozen piece of dog crap. Some bozo had let his dog take a dump on her husband and hadn’t cleaned it up. Also, who took their dog for walks in the graveyard? _The blasphemy_. She heard the patrons at her bar lamenting about it into their beers and sake every night, how Japan had changed since the Amanto had won the war. And sure, the buildings had grown taller and the lights in Kabukicho had gotten stranger with all the flashing neon signs, but they had whiskey now, and karaoke machines, and the girls all had jobs ever since the hostess club had hung out its shingle. So, while her customers complained, Otose just smoked her cigarette in silence. Change, she thought, wasn’t always so bad.

The fat doo-doo left on her dead husband, however, made her wonder if she had been too generous. Clearly, the world was on the verge of anarchy if men were walking their dogs over the dead in the middle of January.

And then there was that other thing she had found under her husband’s headstone: the man in a yukata. Otose had ignored him because she thought he was dead, not only because she doubted anyone could survive a wardrobe malfunction as terrible as his in this snow, but also because bodies turned up on the street all the time. Officially, the war was over, but a second one was being quietly waged as the new government zealously worked to stamp out any surviving Joui Patriots hiding in the shadows. Sure it was tragic, but these were the times, and the man was definitely dead. 

Then, the dead man spoke.

The cold had gotten to his head, and it was a bit hard to tell what he was doddering on about, but Otose figured it had something to do with the steamed buns she had set out for her husband. She let him have them, and the man rambled on some more— something silly about protecting her—before finally demanding she help him to his feet because how was he supposed to look after her while sitting on his ass?

Otose grumped that she had never agreed to such an arrangement and he'd be better off keeling over. Then, she slung his arm across her shoulders and gripped him by his torso and lifted him to his feet. She was getting on her years, but the man—a young man, actually— practically still a kid, _good lord_ , she realized when she got a clearer view of his face—was unnaturally light, and she could feel the ridges of his spine through his thin yukata.

“Don’t slow me down now, old lady,” he muttered as he slumped against her, and Otose instantly knew he’d be a handful.

She tugged the shawl from her neck and threw it over his shoulders. “As long as you don’t turn into a corpse on me, I think I’ll manage."

He chuckled at that, and the two made their slow way to Snack Otose as the snow drifted softly around them.

.

.

.

Like everyone else, Otose had heard of the Shiroyasha. Even since the first day of the war, news trickling in from the battlefront had never been great to begin with (swords and arrows versus spaceships, go figure), but the latest stories had reported nothing but loss after loss, and everyone was growing tired of waiting around for an inevitable defeat. Why couldn’t the Shogun just throw in the damn towel already? This was just a waste of taxpayers' money! And then, the buzz began about a group of warriors who had appeared out of nowhere on the battlefield like a strike of lightning. There were four all together, but the one name Otose had repeatedly heard passing from lip to lip was the Shiroyasha—The White-Haired Demon, Hero of the Human Race and Fiend to All Alien-Kind, Though Rumor Has it He Can Be Kind of a Dick. 

Tales of the four and their victories swept across the nation like wildfire, and suddenly, defeat didn’t seem to imminent, and some even dared to hope. Just when people were beginning to warm up to the idea of not being ruled by Alien Overlords, news came that the Shiroyasha and his merry band had been captured. Someone, though unclear who exactly, had been beheaded. The Résistance was over. While his people were still reeling from the painful blow, the old Shogun collapsed and that sly fox Sada Sada turned around to let the enemy in.

It had occurred to Otose that this white-haired man in prisoner’s robes might’ve been the fabled White-Haired Demon himself. After all, she had stumbled across right after the announcement of the Shiroyasha’s escape from prison. But the war was over, so she waved off all the ifs and maybes, because as far as she could tell, Gintoki was just some skinny brat who was half-frozen and probably more trouble than he was worth.

So, Otose put Gintoki upstairs in the old office between all of her dead husband’s things, and she didn’t fully understand what she had brought under her roof until one evening at Snack Otose. It had been more crowded than usual that night, maybe on account of the full moon or something-- she never understood the strange forces that pulled people to her tiny bar. Point was, Oishi Kabuto was there that night too, and there were a lot of witnesses around to see what happened. 

Oishi was a prick. A large, muscle-bound prick who knew he was large and muscle-bound, which made him even more of a prick. Then, Satan had decided to tie a bow on top of it all by making him ugly as sin and pumping him full of cash. While he was horrible enough sober, adding alcohol to the mix made him an abominable wretch. “A right little wiener,” as her late husband would say. 

Generally, rowdy customers were nothing new in Otose’s line of work. Saigou had voiced his concern about her running the bar alone on multiple occasions (“As one Madam of Kabukicho to another”), and Otose would just answer him with an exhale of her cigarette, and rasp, “Occupational hazard. Like your ingrown hairs,” while nodding in the direction of his badly waxed legs.

So when Oishi started throwing glasses against the walls and sloppily went off about how this town basically belonged to him (it did not) and how he was _practically_ the Fifth Deva of Kabukicho (he was not), Otose took another draw of her cigarette and figured she’d just add the broken glassware to his tab. And when he grabbed her by the front of her kimono and squealed unintelligibly, well, Otose just kept smoking and eyed him like the stupid little pig he was. The whole thing would’ve probably just ended there—a few broken glasses on the ground, a rumpled kimono, a bit of hog-spittle flecked on her face—but then Gintoki, who had been sitting just a few seats down, grabbed two bottles of her best sake by their necks and smashed them together with Oishi’s head in between.

It had been a few weeks since Otose had found Gintoki, and up until that moment, he had been all but invisible. He'd only show himself when he came down from the office to pour himself a drink at the bar before drifting back upstairs like a ghost. In the beginning, a few of the regulars had attempted to talk to him, but gave up and went on to ignore him when it became clear he'd never respond. Other than that, Otose didn't think he ever left that room upstairs. Sometimes she wondered if she really had found a dead man at her husband's grave. 

Then this.

Oishi howled out in pain, both from the lacerations and the alcohol burning into the fresh cuts, his face a bloody wreck. The cigarette might’ve fallen out of Otose’s mouth. Heads turned to stare, stunned by the explosive violence. As if that hadn’t been enough, Gintoki then grabbed the still screaming man and hammered his face into the bar top and its glass-littered surface. Oh, it was absolutely horrific. It had taken the combined strength of five men to haul Gintoki off of Oishi, who had gone unnervingly quiet.

It could have ended there, but Gintoki roared like a man possessed, lunging for Oishi like a mad dog at the end of a chain. In the chaos, someone threw a punch (probably Gintoki), and things deteriorated into an all-out brawl; allegiances nowhere, and every man, woman, and occasional underaged drinker for themselves.

As the Battle Royale pushed and pulled against the seams her of little bar, Otose lit herself another cigarette in the corner, watching the white-haired kid with dead fish-eyes she had picked up in the graveyard explode to life. 

She'd been right: absolute anarchy. 

.

.

.

“Here,” Otose said as she held out a folded piece of paper towards Gintoki before he left to buy the groceries. His left eye was turning a weird shade of purple after a girl with gorilla-like strength had slugged him during the bar fight--god, he hoped he never had to deal with the likes of women like her ever again. 

“What’s this?” He took the paper, giving it a good squint with his one good eye. “Your incontinence prescription?” 

She took a draw from her cigarette, considering him and the petulant little frown on his face. A right little wiener. “It’s a favor for a friend.”

“Are you whoring me out?” He shrilled. 

“No, you idiot!” Otose resisted the urge to shove her cigarette into his ear. “It’s a job. Mr. Iwase down the street needs someone to help him change the roofing on his store. He’ll pay you.”

“You _are_ whoring me out!”

This time Otose gave into her earthly desires and kicked Gintoki out the front door. “Stop being such a bum and go earn some rent. Plus you’re going to pay up for destroying my bar. Do you know how much those two bottles of sake cost? You’d have to sell both your livers!”

He rubbed his back where she had landed her kick. “That’s cheap, you old hag. I’m giving you a white-glove protection service, and you expect me to shell out rent? I even go buy you your incontinence pads!” 

Otose threw her husband’s old scooter keys at his fat head. “The only thing that needs protection around here is my bank account from grubby free-loaders like you, so get to work.” Otose slammed the door shut on him.

Eventually stories about the Shiroyasha and the four warriors faded from people’s day to day conversations as the war grew into a distant memory. Even the government's zeal in tgeur search for Joui Patriots began to flag. Wanted flyers of the escaped White-haired Demon were no longer plastered across every conceivable surface, and his status as a Criminal at Large was available only on the government’s website, which no one ever bothered to check anyways. The buildings in Kabukicho continued to grow taller, the neon lights stranger, and a pachinko parlor had opened up on one of the corners. Word also began to go around about Snack Otose and the strange company the Deva kept there, about a mad dog and a young man who would do odd jobs for the right price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Four Devas arc has to be one of my absolute favorites. Jirochou's comment about Otose keeping Gintoki around as a mad dog stayed with me through the years, and I knew I was going to write a story about it one day. This is One Day, I guess.  
> 2\. I'll admit Gin freaking out over Oishi grabbing Otose might seem a bit OoC. It's probably more realistic that he'd just pry Oishi's hand off, maybe consider fracturing the guy's metacarpal bones, and finally give him the boot instead of smashing his face into the bar. I'd like to think though that right after the war and everything, he'd be a little unhinged and stressed and angry and waiting for an excuse to cut loose, so that's my excuse. Also, Gintoki going absolutely ham is always straight fire.


End file.
